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MOSCOW - Dangerous levels of radioactivity - exceeding the amount produced by 10,000 nuclear reactors - have been detected in two rivers near a western Siberian nuclear complex, a U.S.-based nuclear watchdog said in a report issued Thursday. The Government Accountability Project said that more than enough radioactivity to meet the world's electrical power demand had been found in the Tom and Romashka rivers flowing from the Siberian Chemical Complex, Russia's largest nuclear site. "This pollution is probably the largest ongoing discharge of radioactivity in the world," Norm Buske, the head author of the report, said Thursday by telephone from Washington. |
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 It used to be the case that the Great October Socialist Revolution was the cue for the unfurling of a mass of red banners and flags. But on the eve of what is now the Day of Harmony and Reconciliation, St. |
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The State Customs Committee, faced with a threat by officers at St. Petersburg's airport to confiscate mundane souvenirs to protest a lack of clarity in confiscation and tax laws, has backed down on a controversial 100 percent tax on art works. "We are very happy we didn't have to carry out our threat [to demonstratively confiscate artwork and souvenirs], and that this problem has finally been resolved," said Pulkovo customs spokeswoman Oksana Kudryavtseva. |
All photos from issue.
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 Ruslan Linkov of the Yabloko-Union of Right Forces coalition was forced out of the party over his decision last month to continue his own Duma campaign not to support the party's choice of Anatoly Golov. Linkov said he disagreed with Union of Right Forces, or SPS, members long before the district Duma elections, because of the party's centralized policies and because it was doing a poor job fulfilling its promise to fight for military reform. |
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City Hall's draft budget for 2001 was shot down on its first reading by lawmakers on Wednesday, because many legislators were dissatisfied with its failure to include a "reserve fund" - a sort of free discretionary fund for each lawmaker to spend in his own district. |
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Pope Trial Suspended MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Moscow court has postponed indefinitely the trial of alleged U.S. spy Edmond Pope pending an examination of his deteriorating state of health, Pope's lawyer, Pavel Astakhov, said on Friday. Interfax quoted Astakhov as saying a prison doctor had reported that Pope had lumbago on his left side and acute joint pain in the spinal area that is moving into his left leg. |
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MOSCOW - Several newspaper reports this week have suggested that the Kursk submarine was accidentally sunk by a Russian navy warship called the Peter the Great. |
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MOSCOW - Natural gas monopoly Gazprom resumed gas supplies to Yugoslavia last week, shortly after Serbian officials said they were planning to investigate a huge debt owed to Gazprom by a Yugoslavia-based company suspected of being one of the financial pillars of ousted leader Slobodan Milosevic's government. |
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Contrary to expectations, the former Federal Security Service agent who fled to London this week saying he feared for his life will not release a statement or hold a news conference for at least a week, a London public relations agency said Friday. |
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From early November to Dec. 16, several anti-drug organizations in St. Petersburg are teaming up in a program called "Salvation Island" to combat the city's skyrocketing drug problem. The organizations have joined forces to raise awareness of their presence and to showcase what they do by hosting a series of consultative and cultural events, which will include an art contest. |
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MOSCOW - As Americans prepare to vote for their next president Tuesday, Russian newspapers are attempting to explain to their readers the nature of the U. |
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MOSCOW - Three Russian regional elections went off without a hitch on Sunday after a first-round vote in one of them sparked fierce controversy two weeks ago. The runoff in the central Kursk region came after incumbent Alexander Rutskoi was struck off the ballot in the first round, a move he said was part of a Kremlin plot to oust him. |
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MOSCOW - Al Decie has worked for a U.S.-based nonprofit group in Krasnoyarsk since 1996. But now he is camped out in a friend's apartment in Moscow unable either to live in Russia legally or leave the country because his visa was suddenly seized by the authorities. |
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 AEROFLOT'S flight attendants have good reason to smile these days. After sinking $60 million into the red in 1999, the airline is winging its way toward a profit-making year as performance improves and passengers embrace a new image tailor-made by McKinsey & Co. |
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VAT Exemptions Still Unclear ON Jan. 2, 2000, Acting President Vladimir Putin signed Federal Law No. 36-FZ "On Introducing Amendments of the Law 'On Value-Added Tax. |
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MOSCOW - The nation's No. 4 oil firm Tyumen Oil Co., or TNK, said Friday it would accept shares from a new issue from fellow producer Sidanko as part of a share-exchange scheme. TNK and Sidanko have been locked in a dispute over Chernogorneft, previously Sidanko's major production unit, since TNK acquired it in a hostile takeover through bankruptcy proceedings last year. |
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MOSCOW - After a first attempt failed in 1997, LUKoil, Russia's No. 1 oil firm, is trying to establish a foothold in the United States with a chain of 1,300 gas stations. |
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Telecom Invest, a holding company which controls about 30 telecommunications companies in northwest Russia, is spending $50 million to expand the capacity of the city telephone network by 25 percent. The investment should relieve the burden of overload on the city's existing telephone lines, put more quality lines on the market for those with money to pay commercial rates, and lead to increased competition in the local telecom market. |
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NEW YORK - The euro surged on Monday after the European Central Bank intervened to shore up the currency for the second trading day in a row, but then drifted off its peaks despite wariness of further central bank action. |
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World's Largest Ship MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) - Carnival Corp., the world's biggest cruise operator, said on Monday it has sealed a contract with a French shipyard to build the spectacular luxury liner Queen Mary II, the largest passenger ship ever constructed at a cost of $780 million. |
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WOODLAND HILLS, California - Military shipbuilder Litton Industries Inc. said on Monday it plans to sell its defense electronics unit and focus on its shipbuilding, information security and telecommunications businesses. |
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NEW YORK - Shares of most U.S. tobacco companies gained ground on Monday amid a report that two companies may settle punitive-damage claims against them, while the European Commission said it was suing two others over alleged involvement in cigarette smuggling. |
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MOSCOW - Tax collectors will soon hit the books as a result of a multinational effort to improve tax collection by retraining some Tax Ministry employees. |
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Telekom XXI, one of two companies which hold licenses to provide cellular telephone service operating on the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) system, is finally getting down to business. The company has purchased the base-station equipment necessary to provide cellular service in St. |
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MOSCOW - Russian fighter-jet manufacturer Sukhoi has pulled out of an agreement with U.S. start-up Alliance Aircraft Corp. to build small passenger planes, a Sukhoi spokesman said Friday. |
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 LONDON - Stormy weather returned to batter Britain on Monday, killing two when a falling tree crushed their car. The Environment Agency issued 52 severe flood warnings on 33 rivers across England and Wales. "Over 4,000 properties across the country have been flooded. |
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MUCH has been written recently about the idea that freedom is only useful for enemies of the people. Commentators have told us that plotting oligarchs are resisting the imposition of law and order by citing violations of democratic freedoms, invariably adding something like, "although the police in civilized countries wield much more power than their Russian counterparts do and it is high time we followed their example. |
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Open for Business Cynics say that the U.S. presidential candidates are merely creatures of the U.S. corporate culture. Cynics say that the men vying for the White House are nothing but empty suits and errand boys for the staggeringly powerful, immensely remote and casually brutal crony-combines that rule our nations and our lives. |
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AS Chileans confront their bloody past by moving to put Gen. Augusto Pinochet on trial for human rights atrocities, the United States is also finally beginning to address its own dark history of covert ties to his brutal regime. |
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 PERTH, Australia - A large shark killed one swimmer and attacked another on Monday, turning the surf off one of Australia's most popular beaches into a "sea of blood." Several hours after the dawn attack a small fleet of boats were circling the huge shark in an attempt to herd it out to sea. The shark, which authorities said measured about 4. |
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